#the reeducation of Haskell Haveter

[jaws-and-canines]

One Point Five

Continues from here. A The Re-Education of Haskell Haveter story. 

---

Fennec observes his subject across the table more like an architect rather than anything else. Clinical, but an eye for the detail and the beauty. He has a bitten pencil beside him, taking notes in his heavy handwriting. Haskell looks over his face with a single dilated pupil, the normal, plastic eye painfully obvious, and a sheen of cold sweat all over his pale, almost wax coloured, skin. Fennec thinks he probably ought to get out in the sun more.

Mind you, he doesn't really get outside beyond to smoke. Even though the fluorescent lights and the shine from the two way mirror and metal table make Fennec’s almost ever-present headache worse, it never crosses his mind to take a stroll outside. The open air is frighteningly expansive and the sky is bright and sterile and Fennec doesn’t like it.

He likes minutiae.

As part of his training as a Technician, Fennec spent thousands of hours analysing microexpressions and fluctuations in body language. He can read people like a book, but keeps that to himself. He fills in the observations checklist in silence from what he's seen of Haskell so far. In neat rows next to the freshly inked fingerprints and a black and white photo from today.

Fennec deems him aggressive, neurotic, hysterical, all old fashioned words that Interventional Psychology clings on to.  He doesn't like the trait clusters. There is no box for frightened as a trait. Just negative faults of character. No regard for the fear that drives anger.

He chews his pencil. "How do you feel today?"

"Do you, d-do you have to ask?" stammers Haskell, shivering. He is still handcuffed, and chained to the table, but Fennec doesn’t think he could stand if he tried. The sedative they use in blue packs, as they're called, is rather strong. And God knows what Major Iverson uses- he likes to play around with dosages and mixes, and Fennec disapproves. Not that he would dare to say anything.

He shrugs. "On a scale of one to five, would poor be appropriate? One or two?"

"One p-p-point five," says Haskell, and sniffs. "I feel like shit."

Fennec marks an arrow between one and two. Really, the questions themselves don't mean a whole lot. It's between the lines he has to read.

There's a large bulk of filler questions before Fennec gets to the ones that are designed to find a person's pressure points. The filler questions are mundane, boring, and each time Haskell refuses to answer them, Fennec calmly restates them. He asks Haskell to lie for a set of questions, then to tone down the truth. He notes down the tiny expressions, keeps track of the tells as Haskell lies. And then they get to the pressure point question set.

Fennec whets his lips and turns the page. He reads out the first question indicated for Haskell's personality type. "I am quick to anger. Strongly agree, agree, no opinion, disagree or strongly disagree?"

"I don't want to talk about this," says Haskell. "I d-don't." He almost dribbles down his front. Fennec feels a little sorry for him, but doesn’t let it show.

"You must answer the question." Pressure points are the integral part of Interventional Psychology. They're things that make a person hurt enough to strip back their inhibitions and make them react rather than respond- and if a mental pressure point isn't enough, a physical one is used. Fennec would rather not get to that point.

"N-no opinion," says Haskell.

"I regret past decisions I have made. Strongly agree, agree, no opinion, disagree or strongly disagree?"

Haskell looks up at Fennec and bursts out laughing. Cackling, gripping onto the table with whitened knuckles as if it's the funniest thing he's ever heard. Shivering from the drugs all the while. "What do you fucking think?" he laughs, tugging at his Northwall shirt. "Do I look like I'm where I should be in life? Do I?

Fennec rubs his forehead with his free hand, brushing back his hair. He has a headache.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Arrival

A The Re-education of Haskell Haveter story. Content warning for noncon drugging and manhandling.

Yes, that's right, I finally got off my ass and started putting out the reworked version of this! This is the canon version now I swear I'll update the masterlist soon

---

Fennec is eating lunch when the new arrival is brought in. And he’s brought in like dead weight, almost dragged in. Fennec hears the noise of doors, keys, chains and conversation, folds up his newspaper and stands up, brushing the crumbs of the stale ham sandwich he made himself. He puts his plate in the sink as he steps out to see what’s going on.

There are, he thinks, taking a mental inventory, two guards from the Rangers, two from Northwall, one of whom is an ATLAS-type, and one very tired looking Major in a red Provost beret. Fennec peers at the cap badge. It’s a generic  Provost one, a silver Justice holding scales and a sword, not specific to the Northwall Battalion. The Northwall badge is simply an even set of scales with a rolling moor beneath it. Major Nelson, that is then, notes Fennec, trying to figure out where this all fits together.

If he remembers correctly, Nelson is the officer who liaises with the Provosts themselves and Northwall Battalion, which is a Provost Guard battalion, so, military corrections officers rather than actual military police. But the Northwall Battalion is subordinate to the Provosts, hence, Nelson sports the generic cap badge. But Fennec doesn’t know much more than that. And in all honesty, he thinks it’s a little stupid.

The Major Fennec works under, the messy-haired excitable, almost occasionally frenzied man in charge of Interventional Psychology- Iverson- is talking to Nelson quietly. Between all of this, black-hooded head down, almost slumped over in the arms of the two Ranger guards holding him, is the prisoner. Blue uniform, red stripes, black boots. The standard uniform for someone convicted of a serious violent crime. Hands handcuffed and chained, kept low with a thick chain around the man's waist, and a long runner from the handcuffs down to a short ankle chain.

Fennec is a good observer. From just this, he knows three things. One, from the escort, he knows the man was a Ranger and that he's come from outside the prison. Presumably, Displaced with Disgrace, and directly from hospital. Two, from the uniform and the hood and chains, he is physically violent. Not very tall or large, so likely impulsive violence.

Three, the man is frightened. That is simply a matter of posture and probability. He is trembling in the arms of the escort. Fennec makes a judgement that the man is likely to lash out out of fear. 

Iverson tugs the hood off with a flourish and he is proved correct on all three counts when he recognises none other than Haskell Haveter, face almost red with fearful anger, and when Iverson goes to run a thumb over Haskell's trembling bottom lip, he snaps at Iverson's gloved hand. "Get him down, get him down," says Iverson, beckoning Fennec over from where he's tentatively stood on the threshold. "Where's the Captain?"

Fennec steps in to help pull Haskell to a kneel, shrieking and snarling like an animal. "He is asleep, sir, he was on call last night," he explains calmly as Haskell throws himself against Fennec’s gentle but firm grip on the back of his neck.

"Get off me, get off me," cries Haskell, trying desperately to get to his feet again. Fennec just traps Haskell's ankle chain beneath his foot and leans in.

"I'll drug this one and you take him, book him in and profile him, then," says Iverson, opening the packet of a sedative needle from the pockets on his stab vest with his teeth. "You're on break, aren't you? Can you do it now?"

Fennec watches his lunch break disappear as Iverson threads the needle under Haskell's skin. "Yes, I can," he says as Iverson presses down on the plunger and the needle snaps back inside its plastic case once the syringe is empty. Iverson drops the needle into the bin beside him as Haskell whines, looking left and right in desperation as the drug starts to work.

Fennec whistles a pair of the guards over and gestures for them to help him get Haskell into an interview room. He's dead weight again, resorting to passive resistance, clumsy and uncoordinated. The guards simply drag him along the floor.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Re-education of Haskell Haveter, #1

A Count The Days story. Content Warning for mentions of childhood abuse, blood & bleeding, beating with a switch. Does contain some comfort towards the end although it is an abusive dynamic [guard/prisoner].

---

Haskell

My childhood was not a particularly nice one. It left raw wounds that I hide underneath my clothes, and occasionally something brushes up against those wounds and I bleed through my clothes.

I’m cowering from the man standing over me, terrified he’s about to hit me again.

Although my father never actually hit me, I was plenty scared he would after his temper tantrums devolved into throwing things at me and stamping his feet over the slightest friction between us. He did, afterwards, grab me and squeeze me so hard I thought my ribs would crack, insisting he was giving me a hug and that we were friends again.

But he never apologised. It was always my fault, seemingly.

This is also my fault. Actually my fault.

The difference, here, is that I am actually going to get hit, and there is no question about it. I am expecting the pain. Not looking forwards to it, not dreading it, just expecting it and fearing it.

���You are a disgusting, awful little man,” he says to me, and those words echo through my ears.

I am bleeding through my shirt, the blue uniform shirt, but it’s not the memories. It’s not metaphorical, I am actually and literally bleeding through the canvas denim-blue material.

He grabs me by the hair, lifts my face to his. A few strands of my hair flutter out and catch the light, and then he lets me drop. I sprawl on the floor, staring into the concrete. “I’m sorry,” I say weakly.

“That’s not good enough,” Kade says. “That’s never going to be good enough.” He grabs my collar and pulls up my shirt to expose my bruised and bloodied lower back again. “Say that again, Haveter,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” I sob into the concrete, and he smacks the switch with a heavy hand into the fresh bruises. “I’m sorry,” I sob again, and another strike knocks me flat. 

“Say that one more time,” he says to me.

“I- I’m sorry,” I sob, barely audible, and again, the third strike makes me hiss through my teeth, tasting blood.

I start to cry, properly, tears running down my cheeks as I lie on my stomach, staring at his shoes. I sniff as he tugs down my shirt, tapping me on the cheek with the bloody switch. “Tell me what you’ve learnt.”

“I… that saying sorry isn’t enough.”

“Wrong." Another smack of the switch, this time across my face. I taste blood. And then it dribbles out of my mouth, between my teeth. I retch, still crawling around on the floor.

I shake my head, blood dripping from my mouth. “I don’t know, I don’t understand,” I sob. He doesn’t even bother to pull up my shirt this time, and strikes me between my shoulders, hitting old and twisted scars. I writhe, twisting from side to side, but carry on shaking my head, tears still running down my face. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” I plead. “Please, I don’t know.”

He raises the switch again, but he is stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Kade twists around, the switch still raised, as if he is going to hit Fennec. “I’ve told you about interrupting me,” he hisses.

“That is enough,” Fennec tells Kade firmly. “Enough.”

Kade glares at the German, jaw clenched, and throws down the switch. It bounces on the floor, the flexible wood quivering as it does so from the force of Kade’s indignance. “Fine. You clean this bastard up then,” he snaps, and storms out. He slams the door behind him.

Fennec sighs. He limps over to the trolley and takes the metal bowl of water from the top of it, squeezing out the flannel. “Take off your shirt and sit up,” he says to me, letting the flannel drip into the bowl.

With fingers past-broken and aching in the cold, I undo the buttons and shrug it off. My back is a mess of old scars from lashes and fresh bruises and oozing wounds from whatever Kade was trying to do just then. Fennec drags the stool over to beside me and sits down, inspecting the wounds with a gloved hand at their edges. “Nothing too deep,” he says, matter-of-fact. “I don’t think they need dressing.” He squeezes out the flannel again and starts to wipe them down. I grunt a little, but the coolness of the flannel is an utterly blissful relief from the heat that always seems to radiate from my injuries.

He finishes on my back and washes the flannel out in the bowl again, handing it to me. “Wipe your face,” he says, and I do, scrubbing the salt-stains and the dirt from the floor from my cheeks. He puts the flannel back in the bowl and puts it back on the trolley. 

“Do you understand anything he was trying to teach you?” he asks, a hand on his knee.

“No,” I say, looking up at Fennec.

“Mmm,” he says. I don’t know what he means by that. “I will talk to him.” He puts a hand on the wall to stand up, still holding his knee. Pain flickers across his usually sanguine face as he does, and then he lurches over to the trolley, picking up the discarded switch with a sigh, a hand again on his knee, and dropping it back on the bottom tray. He fumbles with his keys and unlocks the door. “Can you stand?”

I pull myself to aching, bare feet- I have boots, but I’ve not been allowed to put them on for a long while- and straighten myself out, doing my shirt back up. My joints all ache. 

“Come on,” he says, and holds the door open so I can leave the room. The alarm goes off as he does so, but he doesn’t bat an eyelid. He passes me over to the guard who is waiting outside. I wince as the soldier puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Sorry,” says the soldier, realising what the technicians have done to me, and instead of putting my hands behind me, cuffs them in front of me. It’s not comfortable but it’s not painful. His associate throws the hood over my head. I don’t resist, which is the first thing that the re-education technicians tore out of me.

I just let them walk me back with a hand on each of my arms, head down, counting the steps on the cold tiled floor of the corridor.

[jaws-and-canines]

Asleep, I'll Tread With Care

A The Re-education of Haskell Haveter story. Continues from here. Content warning for body horror/biohorror, blood, brief mentions of glass in face. [The title is taken from Death Dream by Frightened Rabbit, which is honestly an amazing song + album]

---

Fennec dreams quite often of the colony. Not his finest hour in reality, but nothing ever really is. He's walking down a seemingly endless corridor, flesh and black ichor in delicate veins weaving through the pulpy pink walls and yellowing inhuman bones that curve over like the arches of a cathedral. It looks almost like a ribcage, breathing around him, and there's the off-kilter heartbeat of a human heart running through the walls.

He's not wearing a respirator, which if not for the fact he is dreaming would mean he'd condemned himself to a slow death. In fact, he's not wearing a uniform suited for walking like this through a colony at all, and he's in his Technician's uniform, blue shirt sleeves rolled up, blue nitrile gloves, dark grey trousers and bloodstained white trainers. But the logic of an unconscious mind means that he isn't worried about breathing in spores or coming into contact with ichor. He's only worried about keeping moving forwards.

Under his feet, he crunches through a thick carpet of decaying tiny bones. Birds, rats, who knows what, reduced to a slurry by decay and the incessant heat of the colony. The awake part of Fennec’s brain is disgusted, halfway between uncanny valley and just plain disgust. The asleep part of him keeps walking. He doesn’t tend to limp in dreams.

He's not sure where he's going, just that he can’t stop. He has the overwhelming feeling that he's being chased.

He walks, and walks and walks, humidity drenching him in a feverish sweat, and he walks until to his horror, he feels a twinge in his knee. He stops, leaning against one of the bone pillars, pressing the heel of his palm against the side of his leg, just like he does instinctively to stabilise it when he's awake. He swallows back a yelp, feeling the warmth of an open wound there, and stumbles to the next bone pillar, smearing his blood over the ivory white. The pain quickly builds until he can barely stand, let alone walk, and he's stumbling and half-dragging himself between the bones, holding onto them like they are a piece of driftwood in an unkind sea.

For the first time, he looks behind him. There's someone there, just standing there in the half light, staring at him with dead eyes. They are, in fact, unmistakably dead, almost skeletal, bloodied and on the very edge of decay. He stares at the corpse for a moment, and recognises the face. "My God, Fride," he breathes, but his old friend doesn't seem to recognise him. Just walks towards him.

Fennec panics a little and tries to run. He falls almost immediately, his knee rolling the one way, the bones snapping together in ways they should never, but undoubtedly he's felt before whilst awake.

"Ah… ah…" he gasps, clutching at his bloodstained trousers and rolling onto his side. "Fride… Fride…Christopher, leave me alone, please," he pleads as the footsteps get closer. He carries on trying to crawl away but his old friend catches up with him in a few strides. Fride's ice cold long-dead hand grabs Fennec by the wrist, squeezing tightly. They lock eyes for a brief moment, milky-white decaying sclera to terrified but very much alive hazel brown, and then Fennec jolts awake in his stiflingly hot room, eyes flying open.

He sits up, rubbing his eyes, and grabs for his glasses from the bedside table with a sigh, fumbling around blindly and flicking on the bedside lamp. He coughs into his hands, wipes them on his trousers and stares at the shadows of the moths fluttering across the walls.

---

Across the facility, Haskell wakes up screaming. About what, he never really grasps, but one moment he's asleep and the next he is screaming, fists balled in his sheets. He screams until he runs out of breath and sucks in a heaving gasp right as he snaps out of it, looking around and blinking slowly. His right eye is gritty, so he rubs at it absent-mindedly, working his knuckles into the canyon of the scar to itch at the base of his eye socket. He sighs, looking around the bare room, the empty desk and the moonlight coming through the window, warped by reinforced glass and metal grating.

It’s almost silent. Almost. Because somewhere down the hall he can hear someone screaming to be let out, to be freed, and the jangling of keys and shoes over linoleum. He sits up on the edge of the bed with a bitter laugh, perching on the edge of the single slab of concrete, and runs his fingers over the scars from the accident, the indents in his face that are still angry and red. He vaguely remembers them having to pull glass out of his face with tweezers, surfacing between the stitches in increasingly small slivers for weeks afterwards.

Whoever’s screaming to be let out is still screaming, and there’s the distant ring of an alarm. Somebody walks past hurriedly, then another, another, and Haskell strains to make out the conversation. He can’t. I didn’t fucking do it, half-sobs, half-screams the disruption. I told you I didn’t fucking do it, it wasn't me!

Haskell sighs, and brushes his fringe forwards, over his eye. He realises he should probably get moving if he isn’t going to go back to sleep and slips his peeling shoes on, worn by countless others before him, does up the velcro, holding his aching head. Whatever is in the sedative they use doesn’t agree with him, never has. It gives him a hangover. He stands up and walks over to the metal toilet and sink, leaning on it to splash his face with cold water. He stares at his blunted reflection in the stainless steel mirror, wetting his hair and combing through it with damp fingers that ache along old fractures from the icy cold of the water. As he does, a single greying hair works its way loose and flutters to his shirt. He stares at it for a moment, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

"Oh, I'm getting old," he mutters to himself, and brushes the shed hair off the front of his uniform, gripping the edges of the sink with white knuckles. He stares at himself in the mirror for a moment longer, knowing that it's not age that's wearing him down but consequences. He turns off the tap and goes back to sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the wall.

[jaws-and-canines]

I would love to see a wip snippet from ReEd 2 if you have one 👀

[Cries in "there's not a lot in that document that's unpublished" but there IS this nice little bit of Captain Munroe from the next chapter which I shall share, yes ^^]

Officially, in Northwall Control, the day starts at 8.30am, when the big clock on the wall at the front of the control center flicks over, and the rounds for the day are automatically sent out to the electronic schedules in each wing, the AM key safes start accepting sign ins and the contractors for the day are signed in.

Captain Munroe gets up earlier. Walks the wing earlier, in leather shoes so polished he can see his own face in them.  He pauses in front of the windows to survey his territory as it starts to wake up. He smiles at himself in the spotless glass. Munroe’s office is perfectly clean. Air conditioned, vacuumed brown carpet, neat cork boards of policy documents and a sprawling wooden desk. The Technicians have an office on the second floor as well, because their need for paperwork seems to outgrow the ground floor staffroom, although it's not nearly as nice as Munroe’s. Nothing is. The budget goes to the more important people first, he reasons. And he is the most important person on this wing, so the budget goes to his office and his expenses first and foremost.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Re-education of Haskell Haveter, #7

A Count The Days story. Content warning for what’s essentially torture but with little physical impact, emotional manipulation and a fictional system of mind control.

---

Anton

When Fennec goes to get Haveter, the prisoner is crawling around on the floor of his cell in a pool of water. 

Fennec steps over the water that's dribbled out into the corridor and watches the man try desperately to shift a stain, red-faced and tearful.

"What's going on?" he asks Fives quietly.

"Bloodstain," says the ATLAS-type simply. "Munroe wanted him to clean it up."

"I need him now," says Fennec. "And he needs bleach to get that out."

"Too bad for him because he isn't getting any."

Fennec puts a hand on the man's shoulder. "With me," he says.

"I can't, I can't, I can't," he sobs, distraught. 

"You're with me."

"I need to clean this up!" he howls.

"No. You're with me."

Haveter starts to cry again. Fennec stares at Fives, and mutters something in German under his breath. "Get some bleach please," he says eventually.

"That's not the point-"

"I am the technician here. You do not set them up to fail. It teaches nothing. Bleach. Please."

Fives licks his lips and stands up. "Fine," he says, and walks off.

Fennec stoops down next to Haveter. "Stop crying," he says. "We will clean this off then you will come with me."

Haveter sniffs. "I'm sorry," he says weakly. He sits up straight, wipes his face on soaked sleeves and rubs his shaved head with his hand, itching the short hair. He used to have a fringe. He used to sweep it over the horrific scars around his right eye and he used to be, in actual fact, pretty damn vain. The Northwall staff shaved it all off when he came back from his trial. It's noted that he cried for days and refused to show his face.

They're not entirely sure whether that was because of the hair or the guilty verdict. Or the knowledge of what was to come.

Fennec watches as Fives returns and puts a little bleach on the stain. It comes off with very little effort. Haveter almost gasps with relief.

In truth, Fennec knows exactly what happened to Haveter's eye, even though it's redacted in his file. But he's not going to let on that he does, not now, not ever.

When the stain is gone, Haveter lets fives handcuff and hood him without any resistance. Fennec lets Fives lead the way to an empty workroom with a single chair in it. They sit Haveter down and Fennec gestures to Fives to strap down the man's hands as he checks through the equipment trolley in the corner of the room.

When Fives is satisfied that the straps are done up right, he pulls off the hood and leaves. He locks the door behind him.

Haveter just looks around, staring at the damp on the ceiling. Fennec drags the stool over to beside the chair and sits down, a hand on his bad knee. He takes a pair of gloves from the box on the trolley and snaps them on. “To resume where my colleague left off, you don’t speak unless you are asked a question. If someone berates you, you say nothing.” He opens his mouth to reply, but Fennec holds up a hand. “Shhh,” he says. “Nothing.”

With that, Fennec launches into the workflow he has laid out in his head. Just a simple pavlovian behavioural modification workflow- he talks to Haveter. Starts easy, and each time the man talks he slaps him, backhand across the face. Once Haveter realises that all he has to do is keep his mouth shut, Fennec starts to lean into the pressure points. He doesn’t enjoy poking at people’s pressure points but it has to be done. If something can be obeyed under pressure, it will be obeyed under normal circumstances.

“It’s a shame,” he says. “You were a very pretty man before that,” he says, gesturing to his eye.

Haveter throws himself against the leather straps, and Fennec notes the fire in his eyes has returned. “How dare you!” he snaps indignantly. The desired response.

Fennec smacks him across the face with a resounding crack. He pauses.

Oh, how he hates the pressure point work. 

“It’s ruined your face,” he says, licking his lips delicately.

Dazed, Haveter, glares at Fennec. “What the hell is the point of this-” he begins.

Another slap across the face. Haveter’s cheeks are almost bright red now. 

He takes a shaky breath and just stares at the floor, the message settling in his head.

The next insult that Fennec throws at him, Haveter just takes. Misty-eyed, and although it’s impossible to tell under the redness from all the times he’s been hit today, his cheeks are burning with shame.

And the next insult, and the next.

He just lets them wash over him. Fennec doesn’t have to hit him again.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Re-education of Haskell Haveter, #6

A Count The Days story. Content warning for someone being hit, referenced beating, a suicide reference, blood, both old and new.

---

Haskell

I’m woken up by the reveille, a horrendous single-tone alarm that echoes through the whole prison for a handful of seconds then fades into an echo. My whole body aches and my back feels horribly hot and tight. I put a hand over my face and groan, hoping to stay in the warmth of my blankets for just a little longer but knowing I’m expected to be at the head of my bed, facing the door so they can count us. The lights flicker on. The moth flutters past my face and smacks into the halogen again.

I daren’t risk a beating, so I haul my heavy limbs out of bed, put on my battered boots and make the bed again, standing at the head of it, almost swaying on my feet. I’ve bled onto my shirt, not through, just like red pastel smeared on the inside of the blue shirt. I’ll ask for some soap to wash it with, although it’ll likely have to wait until tomorrow when they do the laundry. I stand there, chewing my lips, and then my heart skips a beat when the door is unlocked, the little shriek of the alarm echoing outside as it’s pulled open.

Captain Munroe and his thugs. Great. I look at him, waiting for the inevitable anger. “Haveter, why is your bed not made?” he says.

And there it is. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to make that, Haveter? Don’t you? All those years in the Department and they never taught you how to make a bed?” He taunts me. I know he’s taunting me.

But I can’t help it. I bite back. “If it had escaped your notice, my back is quite fucking sore and I can’t bend down to do it,” I mutter. I keep my eyes forwards, not turning round to face the hit that I know is coming.

Munroe doesn’t even break stride, just grabs me by the back of my neck, digging his thumb into my collarbone. “Care to say that again?” he hisses into my ear.

“My back is sore. So I can’t bend down to do the bed. Sir,” I say, still staring straight ahead.

“Did you use profanity or did you not?”

“I did.”

“You did what, Haveter?” he says quietly. Squeezing a little, digging his fingers in a little more.

I swallow. “I did, sir.”

Munroe shoves me forwards. I catch myself, but not in time to avoid smacking my kneecap on the concrete floor. “Your back seems fine to me. You’re seeing a technician at eight, so for the next three hours, I think I’ll have you scrubbing the floors outside. How’s that sound, Haveter?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, turning around to look at Munroe.

That’s when he hits me. A backhand across the face, a flash of pain across my cheek as his wedding ring catches the edge of my scar and takes a chunk out of my face. I bleed down my shirt and onto the floor, an arc of blood on the concrete. 

“Careful, you’ll blind him,” laughs one of the Lieutenants. I glare at him. Munroe grabs me by the collar. 

“You face the wall and you shut up. When I tell you to do something you do it. You don’t swear at me, you don’t take me for a fool. You don’t bleed on my fucking floors.” He runs a finger along the edge of the cut. “You’re going to get a bucket and a rag and you’re going to scrub this corridor until it’s spotless.” He gestures to my blood. “You can start with that,” he says, and lets go of me. "If it stains you'll regret it."

He stares at me. I blank for a second, then realise what he’s waiting for. “Yes, sir,” I say.

“Oh, and because you’re you, Haveter, do us all a favour and put that on,” he says, and unclips a chain from his belt and throws it at me. I catch it, realising it’s an ankle chain. Just long enough for me to step, but short enough that if I try to run, I’ll fall.

Cheeks burning from the shame, I sit down on my still-unmade bed and clip one cuff onto my ankle, pushing my socks down below the painfully stark bone, and tighten the cuff until it bites the skin. A normal prisoner might be able to get away with not knowing that the cuffs are supposed to bite. I couldn’t. So I don’t try to get away with it, even though my ankles and wrists are almost raw from the constant rub of chains. Munroe leans over to check the fetter once it’s on, and I get up and shuffle past the Lieutenants, going down towards the cleaning cupboard.

“Fives,” says Munroe. “Go with him and make sure he doesn’t try anything stupid. If he’s slacking off, beat him.”

The ATLAS-type stops leaning on the wall to follow me. Oh Christ, not that thing. Not that thing. Fives is a wiry man, thin, deep black hair, slightly olive-tanned skin. But he’s no man anymore- he’s a machine beneath the skin. Buried in the human muscles, heart, brain and spine are thousands of pounds of military-grade implants. He could catch anyone, and he could tear them apart. Including me.

He tails me as I walk down the corridor, my gait off-kilter because of the ankle chain catching my step each time I make a stride. I reach the cleaning cupboard and pick up a tin bucket and a scrubbing brush.

“If you want bleach in this you’ll have to open the cabinets,” I say to Fives, who is once again leaning in the doorway of the room.

“I’m not letting you anywhere near the bleach,” he says in that flat tone so distinctive to ATLAS-types. "You might well try and drink it."

I lick my lips and fill the bucket half-full from the cold taps. I take a flannel from the side of the sink and start dragging the lot back to my cell.

I knew another ATLAS-type once. He loved me, I suppose, but in the way a benevolent AI would look upon the human race, a curiosity, something to watch, and defend only to watch and enjoy even more.

Fives is not that ATLAS-type.

I reach my cell and with a pained grunt, kneel down and start wiping down my floor. I start from the back and work my way forwards. 

When I wipe it up, the blood leaves a stain on the concrete.

It stains the concrete.

Oh, God. Oh God, Munroe will be furious.

It doesn’t come out. 

I look up at Fives. “Please let me use bleach on this,” I plead. I feel the tears burn my eyes, frustration, upset that I’ve been set up to fail. “Please, Munroe will kill me if I can’t get this out.”

“Stop crying, you’re making my head hurt,” says Fives simply.

“I can’t just leave this,” I breathe. Tears slip down my cheeks as I carry on trying to scrub away the stain. It doesn’t budge. “He’ll be so angry, please let me use bleach on this, please!”

Fives hesitates.

For a moment I think he's going to be kind and be merciful and save me from Munroe's wrath.

He doesn't.

"I suppose you of all people would know that bleach gets blood out of concrete, wouldn't you?" he says. 

My face crumples. I choke on my own tears then. I have to stop, coughing and spluttering, tears running down my face, before I carry on trying to get the stain out. I scrub at it, whimpering like a kicked dog, hiccupping and coughing between shaky sobs.

The stain doesn't budge no matter how hard I try.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Re-education of Haskell Haveter, #5

A Count The Days story. Content warning for mild mentions of past violence.

---

Anton

Fennec walks slowly. He always has since his injury. For a long time, he couldn’t walk at all and just sat in his mangled trousers, shivering and snivelling. But he doesn’t like to think about that.

By the time he gets to his room, the burning on his hand has settled to an itchy discomfort.

His room is at the end of the corridor of offices, on the second floor. The door locks from the outside, the inside is whitewashed and lit by halogens that make his eyes water, the little ensuite bathroom mouldy, damp, dark and cramped, but it's his.

It's his room and he lives and works out of it, takes his meals at the table, a purely functional intake of calories, writes up his notes at the desk, and sleeps- or doesn't- beneath the grey woollen sheets. He even has a kettle on the countertop opposite his table, at the head of the bunk, and a cupboard in which he keeps a tin of tea and a beaten tin mug. The milk he has to get from the break room is in little packets.

In the same cupboard, he keeps a single chipped glass and a bottle of his painkillers, oft-refilled, and on the top shelf, a spare blanket and some toilet roll. His clothes go in the metal box at the foot of his bed.

It's not a lot that Fennec has. He doesn't really care. He wants to work and they let him, so why should he care?

He brushes his teeth, takes his painkillers and runs the burn under cold water. The skin peels off like wax. He changes into his grey pyjamas, using his hand to lift his bad leg up with a wince. He lies on his side, facing the wall, a crumpled form under woollen blankets. 

He doesn’t really sleep. He dreams, briefly, of a very small vulture tearing at his hand.

He wakes up the next morning when the sunlight first hits the high window in his room, gets dressed, and goes to check the roster up in the break room. He takes two slices of bread from the cupboard there, toasts them and has them with butter and a mug of black tea whilst he reads the case notes on the cases he’ll be taking today from the filing cabinet under the roster. One in the morning, one in the afternoon. He's relieved to see he has Haveter today, and wonders if he can teach what Kade failed to teach. According to Haveter's file, it's to be silent when spoken to unless he's asked a question. Kade was trying to provoke the man, then punish the provoked response but Fennec knows Haveter likely didn't understand what he was supposed to do in the first place. Which was to say nothing at all, even when Kade was putting all his weight into the man's emotional pressure points.

Nothing. At. All.

Fennec takes another bite of toast. Haveter is relatively new to the unit, but Fennec was able to requisition the man's files. Some, at least, since a lot of it was redacted by the Department in thick black ink. Notably, it was Major Nelson, the head of the Facility who had referred him to Re-ed after Haveter had received the lashes he was sentenced to and healed enough that the wounds didn't need dressing anymore. Nelson had noted he simply didn't want to deal with Haveter as he was any longer,  and it was either keep him essentially chemically lobotomised, or try re-education first. 

So it fell to Re-ed. As it often did. 

Fennec finishes his toast and leaves a message under Ida Williams' name on the duty roster. In his pencil, letters "Please see me- AF." and then cleans up after himself.

He cleans up like he was never there.

[jaws-and-canines]

At The End Of The Day

A “The Re-Education Of Haskell Haveter” story. Continues from here.

---

It's getting dark by the time they finish the profiling. Fennec makes sure they get Haveter settled in a cell that's approved to hold a man on the escape list, before going back to the interview room. He stuffs the notes into his satchel, takes his coat from the staff office on the wing and goes outside. 

It’s damn cold. Northwall is eerily quiet outside at night, but as he crosses the prison to the administration sector he doesn’t get stopped, which he supposes is nice. Smoking isn't allowed inside the staff buildings, only vaping, so Fennec pauses under the painfully bright white street lamp next to the staff accommodation. He looks up at the sky and shivers, before hunching over his cigarette to light up. The wind isn't so much strong as persistent- during the storms that sometimes hit the moor, Fennec doesn’t even try. He opens the windows in his room and takes the batteries out of the smoke detector. The weather is typically inclement.

Fennec shakes out the flame on his lighter and glances up as he hears someone walking over the paving stones towards him. It's Iverson, top coat button done up, red scarf tucked in and loose around his neck. Oddly, it suits him.

"Cold tonight, isn't it?" asks Iverson. Fennec looks at him over the top of his glasses. "Hm," he says by way of agreement.

He worries that he's in trouble. Iverson, on a bad day, carries the same sort of aura around with him as the angel of death. And the smell. Most people say Iverson smells of metal and saltwater, but Fennec knows the coppery undertone of blood when he smells it.

Iverson smiles. His face is oddly soft around the edges, not the sort you'd expect to be on a man like him. "I was wondering if you'd like to join me and a few others for dinner. Munroe is going down to the village to grab some Chinese takeout."

Fennec shifts his weight off his bad leg and leans against the wall behind him, shrugging without his hands. 

"What's that supposed to mean?" Iverson leans on the wall as well, perpendicular to and within arm's reach of Fennec, something that makes him particularly nervous. Sure, the Major is smiling, but Fennec has seen what makes Iverson smile and it's never benign.

"I don't like Chinese food," says Fennec. He doesn’t like rice, actually, but most of the times he says that people look at him oddly.

Iverson laughs. Fennec flinches away, and tries to hide it by sniffing and pushing his glasses up his nose. He takes a drag from the cigarette in his hands, careful not to get ash on his threadbare woollen gloves. He considers carefully what he's going to say. "I have work to finish. I should get going." He drops the cigarette and grinds it out under his trainers.

"Sleep well," says Iverson. Fennec sidesteps him with a mumbled agreement, and lets himself into the staff accommodation building with the fob on his keychain, clipped to his trousers on a short chain. He glances behind him, and much to his relief, Iverson doesn't follow. Fennec thinks to himself that Iverson belongs with the prisoners, not the staff. He does not,of course, say that out loud, but the greater number of locked doors between him and Iverson, the more comfortable he is. The thought makes Fennec smile, and he chuckles to himself as he takes off his gloves and pockets them, standing at the bottom of the stairwell, looking up.

Leaning on the cast-iron handrail of the stairs, Fennec makes his way up to his room on the fourth floor. He's asked, twice, to be moved to a room on the ground floor, and the answer is always no. He doesn't have the right paperwork. 

By the time Fennec gets back to his room he is breathless. He lets himself in, hanging his coat up on the hook on the back of the door, checking he’s had no mail and wiping the crumbs off the armchair he has in the corner by the door. He picks up the book he’s been reading from the table where he keeps his kettle and an ever-growing pile of books beside it and flips through it, trying to figure out what’s bothering him about the apartment. Something definitely is, but he can’t put his finger on what.

Eventually it dawns on him that the windows have been shut and curtains drawn all day, so the room smells of warm damp and dust. He limps over to his bed and smooths out the pillowcases, looking almost sad in off-white from years of harsh washing, and straightens out the green blanket over the top. With a sigh, he sits down on the bed and takes off his trainers, checking that the insoles haven’t started to peel apart again, and tuts at the holes in his socks. 

Fennec has to lean his whole weight onto the latch to open the window. Not only does it stick, it doesn’t open particularly far, and is fenced in with rusty wiring like every other window in Northwall. As he stands up straight again, he almost knocks over his ashtray but manages to fumble it back onto the windowsill, a hand on the easel leant against the window to steady it. The last thing he wants to do is smudge an unfinished oil painting and ruin it.

He pulls out the chair at his desk, frowning at the squeaky wheel on the broken office chair, and sits down, taking his notes from his satchel and spreading them out. He tacks the baseline assessment he did with Haveter to his cork board to remind him to mark it, and sighs, looking at the rest of today’s notes. He gives up about halfway through reading over the morning’s session summaries, and picks up his cup from the desk, rinsing it out in the bathroom sink. The smell of damp from the tiny bathroom and the drip-drip-drip of the shower is constant in the tiny accomodation but Fennec doesn’t really care. He fills the cup up and pours it into the kettle, and sets the kettle to boil. Looking under the books on the table, he finds a packet of tomato instant soup between a copy of A Tale Of Two Cities and the sanded down tin first aid box he normally keeps his tea bags and soups in. He tips the packet into the tin cup and pours the boiling water on top of it, stirring it with his spoon.

In all honesty, he’d like a proper meal. But he’d rather not have to deal with Iverson, or anyone at all, really; and if that means instant tomato soup in a room that smells of mould and oil paint, so be it.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Re-education of Haskell Haveter, #4

A Count The Days story. Content warning for [and I’m sorry this one is so, so bad] death mentions, smoking, referenced fictional system of trauma-based mind control, willing whumpee, cigarette burns, abuse of power, abusive person in a position of power.

---

Anton

He always has to smoke before he can sleep when there's a death. Instead of letting himself through the door back towards the offices on the unit, where his bedroom is, he uses his keys to let himself out into the corridor between the cells and the offices. He reaches through the bars on one of the frosted windows and opens it a crack, just enough, he knows, to be able to lean on the bars and draw his smoke out into the arc-light lit night.

He shields his matches from the wind as he lights up a cigarette from the slender, beaten-up tin he keeps in his back pocket, rough tobacco in rough paper, and leans as close as he can get to the outside night to exhale.

He feels the nicotine ease up his aching shoulders, his tight muscles, and sighs. 

"I told you to go to bed," says the Captain, slamming the door behind him.

"I am sorry," says Fennec, running a hand through his hair. "I needed a smoke."

"I told you to do something and you didn't.” 

Fennec hesitates. “No, no, I didn’t.”

“So tell me, Fennec, what do I do now?” The Captain smirks. “You’re the  technician, you tell me.”

Fennec just flicks ash out into the night, voice hollow. “You reinforce the message. Negative reinforcement. Tell the subject the message you want to reinforce, if it’s not done, apply pain, if it is, allow comfort.”

“How would you normally do that?”

Fennec shrugs. “It depends. For a minor thing, a slap, for a major thing, a beating. It is just what it is. There must be balance between the action and the reaction.”

“Give me that cigarette," says the Captain. Fennec goes to stub it out. "No, lit," he says.

Fennec hands it over.

The Captain holds it, the glowing end towards Fennec.

"Give me your hand," he says. "You know how this works, don��t you?"

Begrudgingly, Fennec gives up the back of his hand, knowing what's about to happen. 

Dreading it, but knowing it's necessary. "I understand," he says and looks away.

The Captain takes it in his free hand, and with the cigarette in his other, stubs it out between Fennec's knuckles. “When I tell you to do something, you do it,” he says quietly.

Fennec doesn't scream, nor pull away, just closes his eyes, screwing up his face, exactly how he likes his subjects to take it.

When the Captain takes the cigarette off his hand and flicks it out of the window, Fennec just stands there, staring at the circular, ashy burn. Fennec lifts his head, shaking himself free from his stupor. He finally pulls himself together. “When you tell me to do something…” He pauses, breathless. “When you tell me to do something, I do it.” He licks his lips, and much to his acute discomfort, he can taste ash.

"Go to bed, Anton," orders the Captain again.

"Yes, sir," he mumbles. There was a time, once, when a man of his size and stature would be an issue to give orders to like this. Whilst he isn’t abnormally tall, he’s not a small man, broad-chested and broad-shouldered, and he tends to draw himself up to his full height. Tough there’s nothing behind it anymore, no bravado, no pride, and he just does as he’s told.

This time, when he walks, lurches his way to the offices, he goes straight there. He doesn’t stop. Just walks, dragging his bad leg, cradling his hand.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Re-education of Haskell Haveter, #2

A Count The Days story. Content warning for a prisoner beaten to death, blood and abusive language from someone in a position of power.

---

Anton

Once he's done cleaning the cell and the tools, he goes to do his rounds.

Fennec watches the prisoners with a gentle eye, limping from spy-hole to spy-hole, pressing his eye to each, a hand on the metal door.

They're mostly asleep, a few sobbing silently, a handful tossing and turning. Fennec makes notes in a chewed, blunt pencil on each of the charts outside the cells, noting the state of each subject's sleep or lack thereof.

He stops halfway down the corridor to lean on the wall, catching his breath, other hand on his knee. Eventually he sucks in a particularly deep breath through his nose and straightens up to carry on limping down the hall, making notes in his precise but heavy all-caps handwriting.

He falters outside one particular cell, eye pressed to the spy-hole, and his hand goes to the keys on his belt, searching for the right one. He unlocks the door, pushing it ajar, sounding the alarm that echoes down the hall.

The prisoner doesn't stir. Fennec steps over, shakes the limp form, only to turn the man over and find a particularly grave head wound.

He checks the man's pulse in his neck and finds nothing. Checks under the man's shirt and finds colourful bruising.

He runs a hand along the wall, inspects his fingers, then stands up straight again, a hand on his knee.

There's blood on his fingers. He tuts, for he has no gloves on.

The guards are here now, the Captain standing in the door, alerted by the alarm. "What the hell are you doing?" he snaps.

Fennec holds up his hand, presenting the bloody fingers to him. "Dead," he says simply. "Whoever had him last killed him."

"Get the hell out of here," says the Captain, and as Fennec goes to leave, the Captain brutally shoves him against the door frame.

Fennec grunts, throwing his hands up in surrender. He edges back out into the hall and wipes his hand on his grey trousers.

He picks up the chart from the clipboard on the door and tears it off.

"What are you doing?" asks the Captain.

"I want to talk to the technician that did this," he says.

The captain snatches the papers from Fennec. "Remember your place, Anton," he says with a scowl. 

"I know my work. This was done badly and now there's… wastage." Fennec puts a hand on the papers. "Please let me."

The Captain tuts, a noise of disgust, and lets Fennec have the papers. "Damn mongrel you are," he says. 

Fennec says nothing, just reads down the chart until he finds the entry for yesterday's technician. "Ida Williams," he says. "Where is she?"

"There's a reason your keys don't extend beyond this corridor, mongrel," says the Captain. "You're not leaving this unit."

Fennec feels the tightness in his chest, a little smart at the slur, that one in particular commonly directed at him. "I need to speak with her," he says.

"I'll tell her to come and find you in the morning, Anton, now fuck off to bed." The Captain shoos him back. "We'll chuck this one in the furnace."

Fennec takes a good long look at the brittle form slumped on the cold concrete, feeling more disappointed at a wasted subject than anything else. "If she lays a hand on one of mine, I'll…" he begins, but trails off.

"You'll do what, quit?" taunts the Captain.

With a slight shake of his head, Fennec says nothing. He limps away.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Re-education of Haskell Haveter, #3

This is a Count The Days story. I believe this particualr part to be reasonably trigger-free, so I will use this space to apologise for how dark this particular series is. I won’t. Sorry, not sorry vcmvcxmcxm

---

Haveter

I’m left back in my cell, seven paces up, seven paces down, a bed, a metal toilet and a sink. No table, no desk, just my ratty boots at the head of the bed frame and a pathetic yellow strip light that barely lights the grey walls. Not even a fucking window.

I’ve spent a lot of time in a lot of different cells in Northwall, and the majority of them at least had a window. Hell, even the ones I spent a handful of awful nights awaiting trial down at Nation House had windows. Admittedly, the back wall of the holding cells at Nation House is where they shoot people, so it wasn't a particularly nice place to have a window, considering I was utterly terrified they'd do that to me, but it was a window all the same.

No windows in the ReEd cells, though, no, the environment is too carefully controlled for that. At night, the only light that comes into the cell is through the glass spy-hole on the thick metal door.

I take my socks out of my boots and put them on. I’m cold. I wrap the grey blanket from my bed around my aching shoulders and sniff, wiping my nose on the back of my bony hand. I check under my shirt, feeling the cuts and bruises with a gentle hand.

I'll have to watch myself tomorrow. I don't think I can take that again. You hear stories of them pushing people a little too hard and killing them. But considering there's a zero-tolerance policy for communication between prisoners in the unit, I don't know how true they are.

But likely they are.

There's a scrape of keys in the lock and a bang on the door. I get up, haul my heavy legs to stand back against the head of my bed, a step back from the door. If it’s one of the technicians, I pray it’s Fennec and not Kade.

It's one of the guards, pushing the meal trolley and not one of the technicians, to my relief. "Haveter, H?" he asks gruffly.

"Yeah."

He takes a tray off the trolley and puts it on the floor between me and him. It's not a hot meal, that's a privilege I've rarely gotten and never kept, and I'm so sore, tasting blood in my mouth and nose that I'm not really hungry. "Thank you," I say, turning my back on him to watch a moth smash into the halogen light.

He says nothing back. Slams the door and locks it, and I'm alone again.

I pick up the meal tray and sit on the edge of my bed, a thin, plastic-covered mattress, a single starchy pillow and a grey blanket. I pick around at the food, bread and butter in a little foil packet as well as some slices of meat I can’t identify and a few slices of apple. I’m not hungry. I’m just not hungry. I pick at the apple, peeling the skin off with my teeth, and chew it to a pulp, hoping I can swallow it. I can’t bring myself to, my throat tightening at the thought of swallowing it, so I end up spitting it into the toilet and leaving the tray be by the door.

My stomach turns, and I clutch it, feeling decidedly ill, shoulders throbbing and burning, back aching. I toss and turn on my bed, then get up and pace, and only stop when they come to collect the tray. My eyes water, almost constantly when I’m tired, so I dab at my right eye, trying to wipe the moisture out of the gouge of the scar, and scrub at my left eye until it stings, frustrated that I appear to be crying.

If I told you that a handful of years and months ago, I was one of the most powerful men in the country, respected, feared, even, would you believe me?

Would you believe me?

Eventually, I rock myself to sleep, curled up at the end of the bed. 

I don’t think you would.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Re-education of Haskell Haveter, #11

A Count The Days story. Content warning for mentioned non sexual stripping, mentioned medical gaslighting and death, noncon drugging and past torture references.

---

Fennec

Fennec lies on his back, fists balled amidst his blankets, knuckles white. He groans, tossing and turning, his face pale and dripping with sweat. He wants to clutch at his knee, to cradle the old wound, but it hurts so much, he feels like any movement will make him violently sick.

It usually takes a good twenty minutes of agony for his painkillers to kick in. The halogens make his eyes burn. He wishes he could get up and turn them off but the pain confines him to his bed like an invalid.

He should be grateful he has a room of his own, he reminds himself sternly between dizzying waves of pain. It's starting to ease, a little, and he opens his eyes, breathing deeply. A little longer and he can stand and write up the case notes for the prisoner he was just with.

His knee was his own damn fault, really, it was his fault. He's seen a doctor three separate times, and even though he knows they could replace his knee or even do away with the leg if that wasn't possible, they've never even suggested that. He just has to manage it himself.

The first doctor saw him in a dusty office in a church hall, and was only really appointed to collect evidence of Fennec's injuries. 

He found the whole experience particularly humiliating and degrading, though he would never admit to it. He had to strip to his underwear so the doctor could examine him fully, and in front of his interpreter- at that time, his grasp of English was tenuous at best and he was reliant on the interpeter- the Provost Guard soldiers that were assigned to him had to hold him up so he could stand for the doctor to look at his knee.

The doctor spoke over his head to his interpreter, ignoring Fennec entirely, even though Fennec spoke directly to him despite the language difference. When he asked about pain relief, the doctor told him plainly that he didn't need any. 

That came later when the pain got so bad he was bedridden more often than not.

Fennec supposes that first visit has made him wary of doctors since. He has the freedom to request to see one through Munroe, but he vehemently refuses to. As long as they refill his prescription, he will manage on his own, he tells himself. He'll manage.

He tosses and turns in fits and starts, and eventually, he settles. With a grunt he reaches down to feel his knee. The painkillers have kicked in, at least a little, and his head has cleared remarkably. He smiles as he stands up, then grimaces as he bears weight again. “Ah, Scheisse,” he breathes, praying the joint won’t collapse beneath him. It doesn’t. He straightens himself up as he stands gingerly.

He limps across to his desk to work on case notes, a hand on the wall to steady himself as he goes. There's a knock at the door.

He sits down with a sigh. "Come in," he says flatly.

The door cracks open. It's Kade. "Sorry to disturb you, Anton, but Haveter tried to punch me when I tried to go and get him," he says.

Fennec tuts. "Where is he?"

"Workroom six. I've got him with his hands above his head to put pressure on the scars on his back so he should be pretty pliable in a few hours."

"Why did he hit you?"

"Seriously?"

Fennec clears his throat, raising an eyebrow.

"Fine, Anton, I stood on his hand as I walked past him. Not hard. Just to see how he would take being provoked."

"You shouldn't do that sort of thing. More trouble than it's worth."

"That's your opinion."

As usual, Fennec doesn't rise to it. "I'll go when I'm done here," he says, gesturing to the papers on his desk.

"No rush, it'll give him time to think," says Kade. “Part of me wonders if he needs a work aid. I can sort that out if you want.”

“No. I don’t want the work aid. I don’t like sedating my subjects whilst I'm with them, it's not fair on them. Serves only to scare them more."

“Alright. Your call.” Kade closes the door behind him.

Fennec watches him go, pushing his spectacles up his nose. He doesn't always agree with Kade, as their methods are often at odds with each other. Fennec is subtle man, preferring clean techniques, and to open old wounds then make new ones, in both the literal and psychological sense. But today, Kade is absolutely correct, in both reasoning and method.

If Munroe gets hit, then that's the end for Haveter. Probably with a no-holds-barred beating followed up with a round to the back of the head out the back of the wing. Munroe reports that sort of thing as an accidental death, always has.

Fennec chews the end of his pencil as he works on his notes. One day, he will bite right through it, he swears he will.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Re-Education of Haskell Haveter, #10

A Count The Days story. Content warning for mentions of abuse of power used to hurt a prisoner, manhandling and stress positions.

---

Haskell

Kade is a heavy hand.

He’s not as gentle as Fennec is, and he’s certainly not as patient.

When he finds me, on my hands and knees, scrubbing the floor, the first thing he does is stand on my fingers and pretend not to notice. I clench my jaw, eyes filling with tears. “Kade…” I say weakly.

He ignores me.

“Kade!” I snap and try to pull away. He turns, suddenly, and grabs my wrist, pinning my hand where it is, under his shoe.

“You’re hurting me!” I hiss.

“I know,” he says. “That’s the point.”

Two can play at this game, I decide. I am not a patient man either, no. Not one bit. And I still have one free hand.

I smack Kade, hard and instinctive, on the thigh. “Let go!” I shriek, then follow up with “Oh, shit,” as he steps back, arms folded and it dawns on me what I’ve just done. I cradle my hand, rubbing the marks he’s left on my fingers. My hands are already cracked and bleeding from the bleach and he’s not helped by fucking standing on me.

“How dare you,” he says. Not yelling, not at all. Quiet, low and dangerous. “How dare you.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I breathe, bringing my hands up to protect my face. “Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

“That’s your problem, isn’t it, Haveter? You’re always sorry after you’ve done it. Never think before though, do you?” He grabs me by the hair, lifting my head up to look at him. “I’m asking you a question, you useless man, so answer me!”

“I'm so sorry," I plead. Stupid, stupid, stupid, Haskell, stupid fucking choice.

Kade yells for the soldiers at the end of the hall to come over. I'm on my knees in front of Kade, literally pleading with him at this point. The soldiers just haul me to my feet and put my hands behind my back. I make one last attempt at pleading as they put an ankle chain on me and then I panic as they hood me. Sheer blind fucking panic. Oh, he's going to hurt me, oh, he's really going to hurt me.

I struggle all the way down to the workroom, throwing my weight around, going limp in their grip. They just carry on dragging me as I stumble to try to keep up with the ankle chain so short I can't do much more than shuffle.

I scream, coughing up no, no, no, over and over, but with the hood over my head, it's easier to ignore my pleas. Or at least, to dehumanise them, but that is part of the point of it.

One particularly violent twist to one side in an attempt to free myself is met with an elbow to the face, and I go utterly limp again, ears ringing, nose throbbing, groaning.

There's the noise of keys, a key card being swiped and I'm dragged over a threshold. There's a hand on my head that pulls off the hood and damn well near pulls out my hair. I shake my head, blinking, eyes streaming from the sudden change in brightness. I almost expect a welcome party of blue shirts and black uniforms like when they first brought me to ReEd, the situation is so identical. But there's nothing. Nothing.

An empty bare concrete room, save for a handful of brushed steel anchor points set into the floor and walls. "No, please," I breathe, as they push me into the room, still holding me by the collar. "No, Kade, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"And I'm sorry as well, " he says. They put me down against the back wall, on my knees, my back against the concrete, and wrestle my arms above my head. I try to fight them but then my scar tissue starts to twist to what feels like breaking point and I just whimper in fear as they chain my hands to the wall above my head.

I let my head drop as Kade comes to kneel down beside me. "I'm sorry," I sniff. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, I seem to recall that's what you were begging when they had you out in Nation Square for the lashes," he says. "You never fucking learn. It's not good enough."

“I didn’t beg,” I mumble.

“I’m pretty sure you did.”

“I didn’t,” I snarl, throwing myself against the chains.

Kade just slaps me. I take the hit with a flick of my head to the left and lick the blood from the corner of my mouth. “I’m sorry,” I breathe, still staring at the floor. “It’s just not fair. I made one mistake. One single mistake, and now I’m doomed to this for the rest of my life? It’s not fair.”

Kade takes it about as well as Major Nelson did the first time I said it. I’m almost certain that particular conversation was what landed me in ReEd.

“I’ll tell you what wasn’t fair, Haveter,” says Kade quietly. “And that was you taking someone’s husband, someone’s father and someone’s grandfather and bludgeoning him to death on your hearth and then telling me I should go easy on you because that was a mistake.” I open my mouth to say I’m sorry but he grabs me by the jaw. “If you say you’re sorry I’ll cut your tongue out, I swear to God,” he says. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and start feeling sorry for the man you killed.”

I have nothing to say. There is nothing I can say. I just stare at the floor.

He leaves. My shoulders burn, and then they go painfully numb. The feeling spreads to my hands and fingers and down my spine. Within what seems like both a short span of time and several eternities, I am drenched in my own sweat and tears.

It’s not fair. It’s just not fair. I keep mumbling that to myself, but Kade’s words linger right down to the bone. I stop telling myself it’s not fair. I just sniff, tears rolling down my face, rocking back and forth to try and pass the time.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Re-education of Haskell Haveter, #8

A Count The Days story. Content warning for brief mentions [no description, just references to] of an eye being torn out, brief mentions of a suicidal intent to avoid capture, and mild injury description.

---

Haskell

I cry bitterly when they take me back to my cell. Bitterly and angrily, tears burn and sting and run into my scars and pool around the bottom of my prosthetic. I have to tip my head forwards to get them out, a little twitch that I've learned over the years since the Republic soldiers held me down. Since they tore out my eye with me awake and screaming.

I know we’re locked in a teeth-to-throat cold war, but God, you always expect them to afford you at least some dignity when you’re captured. My cheeks are hot and the places where Fennec slapped me across the face sting. He was careful enough not to break the skin, so it just stings. The chunk Munroe tore out of my scar tissue with his wedding ring is equally tender. I wet the corner of my sleeve and hold the cool fabric against my face.

The thing that makes me so bitter is that in that moment, I knew my position was indefensible, and yet I didn’t take the suicide pill they’d given me. I lied in the debrief and said I had lost it in my time in the field, and then once I was left alone, rationalising it to myself that I was just scared the cyanide would be a relatively slow, immensely painful and particularly ugly death. 

That wasn’t the sole reason, not really, because I thought about shooting myself with my sidearm as I heard the Republic soldiers climbing the stairs.

I didn’t do that either.

I clear my throat. That particular memory is a distinctly uncomfortable one that leads onto several other even more uncomfortable ones.

I used to be a sniper. That's the irony of it. I never missed, not once. I was the best there was. Then they tore out my eye. When I tried to learn with my left eye on the scope, I failed my way through the proficiency class, and in the final exam, I fired four shots.

I missed four times. Wide right of the target.

I failed the exam. Utterly and completely.

They came the next day, two very aplogetic senior officers from my unit, with a condolences letter from my CO to explain that I couldn’t be on the active service register anymore. In the photo that Ayla took of me, upon the mantlepiece, the young officer cadet that I once was watched as they explained that I’d failed the medical, I’d failed the firearms test and I’d failed the eyesight test. There was no chance they could justify me retaking them. 

That they had a post lined up for me in New Westminster. A promotion. A medal as well, for exceptional service and sacrifice. The exact sort of thing my younger self always dreamed of.

I waited until they were gone, and then took the photo of myself off the mantlepiece. Smashed the frame. Burnt the photo, holding it as it turned to ash, blistering my fingertips.

Nothing good ever came from that fireplace. Nothing.

Fuck that young officer cadet. He had no idea what he wanted. He had no idea what lay before him.

I lick my lips, push the memories away, take a shaky breath, then start pacing. On a bad day, I'll pace until my feet blister. Up and down. Up and down.

That's not entirely true, I correct myself. On a bad day, I can't even walk. 

Keys scrape in the lock. With a bang on the door for me to get back, Munroe steps in. "You didn't do it. I told you to clean the corridor."

I say nothing, remembering what Fennec's point was this morning. It’s just like basic training again, except basic training is a little less… brutal. But I suppose this is correctional, so what can one expect? We get what we give.

Munroe waves his hand in front of my face. "That dog teach you a bit of respect finally? To shut up unless I ask you something?"

Unless you’re Munroe, clearly, because then you deserve a punch in the throat and a kick in the stomach and all you get back is me treating you with the respect you don’t deserve.

"Yes, sir," I say pointedly.

He sneers. "Normally I'd have them beat you for not cleaning the hall when I asked you to, but what the hell, you're showing some promise for once." He crosses his arms across his chest, tapping his foot on the floor, considering.

Eventually, he settles on something. "You're not getting lunch. I want that hall scrubbed clean."

"I have a question, sir," I say quietly, still standing to attention with my hands behind my back.

He raises an eyebrow and gestures for me to continue.

"Can I use bleach?" I ask. "Just… this morning…" I trail off.

"This time? Yes. No gloves, though," he says. "I want to see your fingers bleeding. I’ll be nice and say no ankle chain, but if you run… if you run, that’ll be the last time you ever do. Understand, Haveter?"

"Yes, sir," I say quietly.

I’m going to get you for this one day, I think, staring at his back as he leaves. Then I remember the last man I thought that about. 

I clear my throat again. Go to undo a top button that isn’t done up. My fingers meet my undone shirt. Suddenly, acutely, I can feel the starchy fabric rubbing on the old scars on my back. I wish I could un-think the thought of getting back at Munroe, never entertain it again, but I can’t. I just have to swallow the lump in my throat with a wince, and get on with cleaning the hall. 

[jaws-and-canines]

[Image ID: Digital art, colour on a white background. Anton Fennec, facing profile, wearing a blue shirt and grey spectacles. He is unshaven and his hair is parted down the middle. There are dark circles under his eyes. End ID.]